380 Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 



turbances, beginning on the 6th or 7th of March 1830, and con- 

 tinning at intervals for about a twelvemonth, disappeared com- 

 pletely below the surface ; so that now no part of it is visible, 

 though it is said that its situation is occasionally revealed by 

 breakers. Further out again, perhaps some six-and-twenty 

 English miles from Reykjanes, rises another tall stack, called by 

 Icelanders Geirfugladrangr, and by Danish sailors Greenadeer- 

 huen (the Grenadier's Cap). All these rocks have been long re- 

 markable for the furious surf which boils round them, except in 

 the very calmest weather. Still more distant is a rock to which 

 the names Eldeyja-bodi or Blinde-fuglasker have been applied 

 by Icelanders. This is supposed to have risen from the sea in 

 1783, the year of the disastrous volcanic eruption in Skaptafells- 

 sysla, and soon after to have sunk beneath the waves*. 



Icelandic records show that, at the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century, various changes took place among the islands off Reyk- 

 janes just enumerated. It is stated that a rock, then known as 

 Eldey, disappeared ; but another being thrust up close by, the 

 old name was transferred to the new-comer, and has since been 

 borne by it. No notice is taken in manuscripts of that remote 

 time of the birds found on these islands ; but doubtless they were 

 even then, weather permitting, visited by the inhabitants of the 

 adjoining coast. Indeed, it is asserted in Wilchin's ' Maldaga- 

 bok' (which dates from 1397, and has not, I believe, been printed), 

 that half the Geirfuglasker belonged to Mary Church in Vogr, 

 now represented by Kyrkjuvogr, and one- fourth to St. Peter's, 

 Kyrkjubolu, of which the church at Utskala is the modern equi- 

 valent — claims which were still looked upon as extant until the 

 submergence of the skerry put an end to them. It has been 

 suggested that the remaining quarter was shared by the church 

 of StaSr in Grindavik ; but most likely it was left to reward the 

 bold adventurers who resorted thither. In 1628, twelve men 

 were drowned at the Geirfuglasker, no doubt in a fowling expe- 



* I should have wished to have given, in explanation of the above 

 description, a sketch map of these localities, but I have not the means of 

 doing so accurately. From our own observations, Mr. WoUey and I had 

 reason to doubt whether the bearings of these islands have been correctly 

 laid down either in Gunnlaugssou's map or the Danish Admiralty chart. 



